Abstract

A measurement set-up to determine the heat losses of single parabolic trough receiver components at steady
state conditions has been developed at Schott. This paper describes the functionality of the set-up and a
comparative campaign with three Schott receivers of 7.0, 8.9 and 11.1% emittance (400°C) including test
stands at German Aerospace Center (DLR) and U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). This
campaign showed generally good agreement with deviations <10%.
Additionally, results are compared to heat loss predictions derived from optical measurements of the absorber
coating via a one-dimensional simulation. The general trend suggests good accordance with a systematical
deviation at lower emissivities.
Overall, this non destructive measurement technique provides a good possibility to determine an important
receiver specification, its heat loss.